The Rock Store, BMW, Rob’s inputs, and more…

You know the feeling…you’ve got a motorcycle ride planned and you’re looking forward to it.  Gathering your gear, pushing the motorcycle out of the garage, suiting up, and riding to link up with your amigos.   I’ve got the feeling right now, and I’m looking forward to Sunday morning.   It’s going to be a grand ride to the Rock Store.  I love that place.

I’ve seen some pretty impressive bikes at the Rock Store, and some extremely impressive people, with none other than Jay Leno being at the top of that list.   What I especially like about Mr. Leno is that he is a nice guy and he is totally unpretentious.   He arrives on a motorcycle without an entourage, he’s always surrounded immediately by people wanting autographs and photos, he’s always accommodating when that occurs, and after 15 minutes of satisfying the demands of his admirers, he’s just one of the guys taking it all in.   I grabbed this photo of Jay and my buddy Dave Walker a few years ago, and he was joking with us the entire time.   He’s a cool guy.

I like the crowd at the Rock Store.   And I like the photo ops.   I’ll bring back some photos and put them on the blog.

I had dinner with the bosses last night, and the conversation turned to the profile of our typical CSC RX3 buyer.   We decided that there is no such thing as a typical buyer…you folks are as varied as they come.  Male, female, young, old, new rider, more experienced rider, affluent, not so affluent…we’re all over the map.  But one thing was extremely interesting…about half of our RX3 riders own other motorcycles, and most of those are BMWs.  It seems that a lot of folks who are buying the RX3 are BMW riders.

Part of it, I think, is that the RX3 is not an intimidating motorcycle.   I read an online comment by a guy who owns a GS1200A the other day seeking inputs on the RX3, and the gist of it was this:  He owns a GS1200 that he is making payments on, but everything is so expensive and the bike is so big, tall, and heavy that he is afraid to take it off road.   We understand that, and we hear it a lot.  It’s interesting and in a way, sad…folks drop $25K+ on an adventure bike, and then for a variety of reasons they don’t want to take it off road.   Some folks do, but a lot don’t.   The standard joke is that the most likely place you’ll find a GS is parked in front of a Starbucks.

Don’t get me wrong…BMW is a first rate outfit and they make a world class motorcycle.   But the comparisons and the connections with the RX3 keep coming.

• We’ve been told that the cost of a set of aluminum bags for the GS costs about the same as our entire RX3.
• I mentioned what the guy at Overland Expo told me a couple of weekends ago…the headlight for a GS costs about $1500.   Buy a couple of those and you’re within spitting distance of what an entire RX3 costs.
• I know from when I wrote my book about police and military motorcycles that a clutch replacement on BMW police bikes is north of $1200 (and for the police bikes, that’s not covered on the warranty).   Due to the demands the boys in blue put on their bikes, clutch replacements are frequent.   Three clutch replacements on a BMW and you could have a new RX3 with a hundred bucks left over.

You get the idea.

Another connection to the BMW world…in the very near future we’ll be announcing our new CSC service manager, and he comes to us from a career spent managing BMW service organizations.  Stay tuned for more info on that.

More good stuff…our good buddy Rob sent us some great shots of his recent RX3 ride.  First, the video…

And a few shots of Rob’s RX3 up on Rowher Flats…

Rob, thanks for the great camera work!

I’m looking forward to seeing all of you Sunday morning.  We’ll arrive at the Rock Store about 8:00 a.m., and if you want to ride out there with us, be at the CSC plant no later than 7:00 a.m.